Something mostly different
Facebook brought me together with a second cousin I had never met–Nick Pisarro (his family ends the name with “o”. I don’t know why.)
Nick’s wife, Barbara, has done a ton of genealogical research on the family–it was she who gave me the information on our home town in Italy.
They came out here a couple of weeks ago to visit their son, and Nick, who is an avid photographer, went around our house taking photos of the art, in his own unique style.
He put up a web page with the photos, and I thought you might like to see our collection from another perspective.
http://pisarro.org/PisarraSculpture/index.html
No sin in crying wolf
At least, if you mean Bay Wolf, the restaurant on lower Piedmont Avenue in Oakland which has been there for 38 years and still puts out an excellent dinner.
We went tonight with Beth, the Travel Goddess. She has bailed my sorry butt out of more than one travel planning disaster, and we owe her big time. If you’re thinking of a major trip, she’s the one to iron out the details.
Off we went to the Bay Wolf. Occupying a converted Victorian home, the front half of the business is a semi-open terrace area. I alway love the feeling of being inside and outside simultaneously, and was pleased when we got on of the terrace tables.
Even after 38 years, Bay Wolf tries very hard to keep up with the times. The menu is very modern and innovative—this isn’t the place for Scotch and Prime Rib.
First off, Gail had the Cauliflower soup:
Cauliflower soup with anchovy foam and purple daikon radish
I can’t say I could taste any anchovy in the foam, but the little taste I wheedled out of Gail was scrumptious.
I had the melon salad:
Melon salad with marinated feta and basil
Chunks of watermelon, casaba and some other kind of melon, drizzled with oil and balsamic vinegar, topped with marinated feta and fresh basil. This was unlike any other salad I’ve ever had, and was as delightful as it was innovative. The sour bite of the feta balances the sweetness of the melon perfectly, the bright flavor of the fresh basil brings it all together. Truly a spectacular dish.
Spiedini is Italian for skewer: Gail ordered the lamb spiedini and essentially ended up with shish-ka-bob. The good news is that it was really good shish-a-bob. Large chunks of tender lamb cooked medium rare (well, sort of. More medium than rare, it seemed to me). Some kind of ultra modern vegetable melangé, even a couple of chickpea fritters (those disappeared in a flash, and there was no chance of me getting a taste)
You don’t need to feel bad for me, I had this:
Duck, glorious duck
I love duck, and this was a particularly good example. A leg/thigh placed on top of a sliced breast, so I could enjoy two different types and textures. Pickled nectarines, for some reason. Odd, but tasty. Corn pureé, just to make it perfect. Beans, just because. I ate every bit.
Service was smooth and efficient. My iced tea had not only the proper yellow packages of sweetener, but came with a long=-handled iced tea spoon to stir with. That’s the kind of small touch you can perfect if you survive 38 years in the most treacherous of industries—hospitality.
Bay Wolf manages to have the excellent ambience of a business long established and well-managed at the same time as it offers a modern and up-to-date menu of food excellently prepared and professionally served. I guess you’d have to say I liked it.
Rustic modern or modern rustic?
Roya’s Garlic Garden in the middle of Lafayette is no more. Restaurants with Swedish/Persian chefs have a conceptual problem right off the bat, and Roya never managed to overcome it. She wanted to be cosmopolitan, she wanted to be middle Eastern, it just didn’t work.
Replacing Roya’s is Rustic Tavern, a very professional operation run by three people with experience in the Lark Creek restaurant group. They know what they are doing and present a unified whole of an experience.
The first thing we noticed is that this place is LOUD. Really loud, unpleasantly so. They have been open just over 2 months, so perhaps they will make some adjustments. We were able to take a table outside, the better to enjoy a perfect evening. If the weather were less clement, I doubt that we would be willing to eat in the clamor that is the dining room.
I also note that there is nothing rustic here. Modern decor, modern menu. Why they call it Rustic Tavern is beyond me.
They are so new that their website is only 1 page. No menu, no “story”, no nothing. A phone number and a link to opentable.com to make a reservation is all there is. That should improve along with everything else.
The menu is quite short, but there were 3 salad specials and an entree special to add to the mix. The food is California modern, all locally sourced, organic and touchy-feely. Dining out has become a political statement; where the foodstuffs come from is as important as how they taste, it would seem.
I started with one of the special salads–heirloom tomatoes.
Heirloom tomatoes, basil, bleu cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Salads are usually served quite chilled, but the chef here has the good sense to serve this salad room temperature, which brings out the meatiness of the tomatoes.
Gail had the Dungeness duo, a crab cake made from the body meat served on a jicama and green papays salad, paired with the claw meat which is served on asparagus. Gail thought the salad was very salty, but still enjoyed it.
House fettucini with poached egg on top.
Gail’s dinner was the house fettucini, an excellent carbonara. The dish is served with a poached egg on top; the diner breaks the yolk and mixes it in with the pasta to enrich the sauce of cream and cheese. Rich is the operative word here–this dish is majorly heavy, a little goes a long way. The menu says it includes “pork belly”, but it sure seemed like they were taking liberties with the term–it looked and tasted more like bacon to us, and somewhat overcooked bacon at that. Real chunks of pork belly, or at least genuine Italian pancetta (cured, not smoked, bacon) would be much better.
I love fettucini carbonara, but decided to have the California Sea Bass special in an ongoing attempt to make my cardiologist like me.
California Sea Bass
This dish was a mixed bag–the fish was excellent, the vegetables ranged from ice cold to piping hot, perhaps the result of inefficient microwaving. There was a bit of salad, which had another exceedingly salty dressing.
Two months is not a long time to work out all the kinks in a new operation. I liked the iced tea spoon they gave me with my drink: I wish they had Splenda as one of their sweeteners. I like the outdoor tables: I wish they would work at leveling them better so my dinner wouldn’t rock so much. I like the service in general, but we had to use my napkin to mop up a spill (uneven table top) and the waitress forgot to replace it.
Rustic Tavern is not cheap–dinner for the two of us was over $100 with the tip. For that price I’d like to see more consistency, but I’m willing to give them a little more time and another chance. The food here is better than most; they should be able to fix the small errors soon enough.
Food 9, service 2
I’ve been hearing about Lungomare, in Jack London Square, for a while now, and tonight we finally managed to get there. I find myself very conflicted about this place, and can’t wait to talk about it.
Restaurants management is divided into the front of the house and the back of the house, generally with different managers for each. The concept is pretty easy to grasp: food prep is the back of the house, and is under the iron rule of the chef. Service is front of the house, and is directed by a FOH manager even when the chef owns the entire place.
I have no idea about the ownership of Lungomare, but it was clear to us that the kitchen turns out excellent food while the service is so poor that I can’t recommend that you eat there.
In fact, just the fact that we were eating there was a bad sign. Gail made a list of well reputed East Bay restaurants for Saturday night, and I couldn’t get us a table at any of them–it’s a holiday weekend, after all. Opentable provided me with a list of places with open reservations, though, and there Lungomare was–why should they have so much availability? Their location is excellent, in Jack London Square where Miss Pearl’s Jam House was, where indeed there has a busy restaurant for the entire half century I have lived here. It’s easy to get to and the valet takes your car so you don’t have to park. (On the wall of the valet station is their list of rules for the staff. Rule #2 is “don’t hit anything”. That gets right to the point. )
Walking in, we told them we had to add one to our reservation–daughter Kate came with us. No problem, there were plenty of tables available.
The building is very attractive, with glass walls facing the estuary and the square. The design is casual, there are no tablecloths and the “napkins” are kitchen towels. This keeps costs down, but increases the noise level. Unfortunately for us, we were next to a table of 14, who were having a very good time–each round of drinks raised the volume a few decibels.
Our waiter arrived, nose ring and all. I try to be hip, slick and cool, but I just can’t get behind nose rings. He explained the things on the menu, sort of, using the phrase “pretty much’ for pretty much every item. I was pretty much not happy with the service already. We ordered drinks, noting how proudly he mentioned that they offer no Coke or Pepsi-type products, only specialty drinks. Fortunately, they did have iced tea. We were perhaps a bit too casual, but it seemed like an exceptionally long time before our dinner order was taken.
They offer a burrata appetizer, which Kate loves as much as I do, so I ordered it. For $11 we got a bit of burrata, which was very good. A couple of exceedingly thin slices of very very salty smoked salmon and 5 tasty fennel/rosemary crackers.
We finished our burrata and nothing happened. Lungomare doesn’t seem to have any bussers, our plates just sat on the table. Finally, after about 20 minutes, the hostess came over and picked up the serving plate and one of the three small plates for service.
Our waiter re-filled my iced tea with more tea–but no ice, so I had warm tea. The other two service plates stayed on the table.
Eventually, because they have to bring you some food if they want to call themselves a restaurant and not a library, my salad came.
Panzanella salad
This was a great salad, in a Florentine tradition. The chunks of bread were slightly crispy, but not hard like croutons. The balance of oil and vinegar was just right, and the grilled peaches and nectarines were wonderful.
Gail and Kate shared a bowl of the tomato and bell pepper gazpacho, somewhat uncharacteristically because neither of them is found of cucumbers, which are an essential part of my favorite cold Spanish soup. The chef must be a wizard, though, because they scraped the bowl clean. I managed to get a tiny taste, and have to agree that it was a superb imagining of gazpacho.
Trofie with pesto
I had a simple bowl of pasta, a variety they call trofie. The sauce was a basil and hazelnut pesto, and it, too, was excellent. It may take entirely too long to get some service in this joint, but there is not complaining about the food.
Then Kate had something truly exceptional:
Porchetta
Porchetta is an Italian stuffed pork roast. The stuffing here seemed to be a spicy sausage, not unlike salami. What is particularly special is the size of the portion–it is huge. Vast. Enormous. There must have been over a pound of meat on the plate. Kate ate her fill, then I finished what I could, then Gail had a bite or 3 and there was still meat left over. This portion goes beyond generous all the way to silly.
As good as the meat was, Kate says the grilled stone fruit on top of which it was served was even better. I can’t say–she didn’t leave any for me to try.
Taking no chances, we flagged down the waiter and asked for the check even though we weren’t finished eating. We knew there was no chance we’d risk another eternal wait for dessert.
The bill was quite reasonable for 3 people, and I didn’t have to spend a lot on the tip, either. They validated the parking and we were out of there for under $135, parking included.
So I love the back of the house, hate the front of the house. The waiter was just not very good, and there doesn’t seem to be any bussers at all. The hostess tries to compensate, but that isn’t really her job and she doesn’t have the time. The food is flat excellent and the prices are good, but I can’t recommend Lungomare until they shape up their front of house management.
Meet my friend Daphne
A little over two years ago, I went to the wedding of Becky Rice and John Harrington, in Griffin, Georgia. I blogged about the wedding, and it was the most popular post I ever made until a car crashed into the bridge club.
Now I have the immense joy of posting about them again, and their brand new baby daughter, Daphne. Only six days old, and already a star. I got to meet here today and take a few dozen, okay hundred, pictures. The lady in blue is her grandmother, Peggy Rice. Here is the condensed version, I hope you think she’s as beautiful as I do:
Too much success
Yogi Berra was supposedly talking about a new restaurant when he said: “Nobody goes there anymore, they’re too crowded”.
That’s the way we feel about Art Murmur, the big event in Oakland on the first Friday of the month when thousands descend on the Telegraph Avenue art corridor, the streets are blocked off, the galleries are open, the street vendors come out with food and crafts and all the hip, slick and cool people are there to see and be seen. It’s gotten so big that you can’t move around the galleries, you can’t park nearby, the artists are too busy to chat and it just isn’t fun for us any longer.
Fortunately, there is an alternative–Third Thursdays. The third Thursday of the month, the galleries are open late, musicians come play, the artists are in attendance, and the crowds are tiny–mostly just the real art aficionados. It’s a great way to see what’s happening in the arts district of Oakland.
This week, we went to the Roscoe Ceramic Gallery, on 25th, to see an exhibit by our friend, Michelle Gregor. Michelle is a fine sculptor and a professor of art at San Jose City College. She’s also really tall, with a big personality to match.
Michelle is accustomed to being the center of attention.
Her show was all new work; relatively small figures.
Across the hall, at the Mercury 20 gallery, I found a new artist whose work I fell in love with, Julianne Wallace Sterling. Julianne is a young married woman with two kids who lives in Albany and paints in here home studio. She is exhibiting large paintings of people, clothed and unclothed. I have long had an idea in my head for a photo I want to make, and Julianne has already painted it:
This just works for me.
Another in the series.
I know I want the first of these paintings; Gail and I are debating where in the house it might fit. I’ll attach it to the ceiling if that’s what it takes.
Third Thursdays are pretty much a success as far as we’re concerned. We’ll be going again–want to ride along with us?
Susan makes a movie
Last month we were in Orlando to bring a present to Susan, a piece of art from our friend Kevin Nierman.
Susan and Karl had to do some re-arranging of their wall space to hang it, and she made a delightful movie of the process. Enjoy it.
Sculpture time again
It’s Father’s Day Weekend, and that means it’s time for the sculpture show at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. This time every year they fill the garden with the best of local and distant sculptors and invite the world to enjoy the art in the garden.
Friday night is the big opening bash. It will set you back about $60, but for that you get wine and food and music with your art, and get to hobnob with famous bloggers as a bonus. If you actually recognize the famous blogger, you’ll probably get invited to an exclusive party afterwards.
The art will stay in the garden for a month after that, at the usual entry price of $10. This is one of the most beautiful succulent gardens in the world to start with; filling it with art makes it like an outdoor museum. It’s something you really don’t want to miss.
Instead of talking about it, I’m just going to include some photos of details. You can click on them to see the full size version. I hope to see you there.
Not exactly fast food
If you think about a restaurant that is only open for lunch, you probably think of a sandwich joint in an office park. Mostly, that’s true. But I know of one fine dining establishment that closes every afternoon at 5, The Rotunda at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco.
The Rotunda is the perfect site for “ladies who lunch”, upscale tourists and lucky guys from the East Bay who have a lunch meeting in the City. It’s on the fourth floor of the store, so you get to ride the escalators up and gawk at the $1100 shoes and $600 shirts, or stop and look at the really expensive stuff.
Because they rely on being available for shopper to have a bite, they only take reservations for 1/3 of the tables. We walked in around 1:30 pm and had no problem getting a table, but were not able to get a window seat with the big view of Union Square.
The rococo design of the old City of Paris store lives on.
Meals at The Rotunda always begin with a tiny cup of consumé and bit of pastry, delivered to every diner even before the waiter makes his way to the table.
A delicate beginning to the meal
Next up is the popover, accompanied by strawberry butter. In the old days you got two kinds–strawberry and plain butter. The accountants got to the menu, though, and now you have to ask for plain butter. In these hard times we all have to make sacrifices.
A very practiced presentation.
Making popovers is an art; one that the Rotunda has perfected. If you look hungry, they’ll even bring you another one. Be careful, though. The food is here is good; you don’t want to spoil your appetite.
Gail started with the tomato soup–not tomato bisque, not cream of tomato, honest to God tomato soup, big tasty chunks of perfectly ripe tomato and not a drop of cream in sight. Linda Bandler would love this soup just as much as Gail did.
Then Gail had the shrimp and crab louis.
That’s a heck of a mound of dungeness crab.
There isn’t anything very creative about this dish, it”s just the basics of perfectly fresh crisp lettuce, tomato, hard boiled egg and avocado topped with a ton of fresh dungeness and a bunch of huge prawns. It’s hard to beat doing something simple and standard, just doing every little bit of it perfectly.
I had something considerably more daring:
Smoked salmon and truffled egg salad
This is an open-faced sandwich–there is a slice of brioche bread under all that smoked salmon. The egg salad was phenomenal, strongly flavored with savory truffles. The combination is something I’ve never seen before and may never see again, I’m very glad I tried it.
Our friend Harry has another The Rotunda classics, the lobster club:
How to make an old standby super upscale.
Just take the chicken out of a club sandwich and substitute lobster, what could be simpler? Switch from Wonder bread to house made brioche bread. Add some chips made from hand sliced potatoes, and you’ve got a dish worthy of the Neiman Marcus name. You can charge a couple of bucks more, too.
A meal like this deserves dessert. I had the chocolate caramel butterscotch budino, which is just the richest dish of pudding you ever had.
Not what you get in those little plastic cups.
It isn’t often that a dish is so rich I can’t finish it, but there was just too much heavy creamy goodness here for me to choke it all down. Fortunately, Gail helped.
Gail went for the simple finish to her meal:
One single, perfect scoop of Espresso ice cream.
Gail didn’t want the entire dessert, just the scoop of ice cream, so she asked for what she wanted and the house was happy to comply. I’m always surprised by people who are afraid to order “off the menu”–it’s a restaurant, they will make what you want.
And yes, I ate my flower. Just for the heck of it, they don’t really have much taste. It’s a good way to amaze the grandkids, too.
Harry had the limoncello tiramisu. Limoncello is a liqueur made from lemon peel, and is bitter as a three time loser in divorce court, but you can add a ton of sugar and make it palatable.
Another gorgeous dish.
Service was, shall we say, leisurely. You don’t just pop into the Rotunda for a quick bite on a 30 minute lunch break, and they aren’t about to rush you through your meal. Eat here and you have time to savor your meal and share all the latest gossip with your companions.
Prices are what you would expect from a store with $1500 purses and $200 mens ties. What few reservations they take are available on Opentable.com Always ask for a window table.
We get to The Rotunda 3 or 4 times a year, and enjoy it every time. It’s the classiest way to have lunch on a shopping trip to the City, and unquestionably the best lunch-only place to eat anywhere.
See the new Bay Bridge
We went on an Art Guild trip today, and began by crossing the Bay Bridge. You can see much more from the height of a bus, and I got a good video of the almost complete construction.
The bridge looks nice, but after 24 years of political dithering it damn well ought to.
Totally Unauthorized 